Vinyl

Before I go on with the story about my musical career (so to speak), a digression. I've had music on the brain a bit, ever since I started talking about this, and I started thinking about records. (Talking about Waterloo and vinyl records the other day may have had something to do with this tangent, too.) I started trying to remember what records we had at this time, and especially if I had any classical music. I'm not at all sure that I did - at least, not until I was in high school, maybe. We didn't really have easy access to a lot of records other than the pretty limited selection at the local discount store - I can't remember the name of it right now, but it was sort of a proto-WalMart kind of place. My hometown didn't get a Wal-Mart until considerably later. That's the place I remember buying the first records I really picked out myself. If you look up the hit songs of those years - 1971 or 1972 - the ones I was buying were pretty high on the list, probably. I had "Joy to the World" on a single (the Three Dog Night song, I mean, not the Christmas one) and I know that some of the first albums I bought were an America album - "Horse With No Name" was really big that year - and the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack. I can't remember having any classical music until later. I bet if that store had any it was of the "Beethoven's Greatest Hits" ilk; it seems like there was a series of albums like that that used to always be around, anybody else remember those? I think maybe the first classical albums I bought came from Austin, actually - we used to always go up to UT for State Solo & Ensemble contest when I was in high school, and there was a store at Dobie Mall that we used to buy records at. (That one was Record Town, I'm pretty sure - because it was still there when I lived at Dobie in the late 70s.) I had a Rachmaninoff album, I know, although I don't remember when I got that. Remember I said that Van Cliburn had big hands? I'd recognize the cover of this album if I saw it, because the pianist - a woman - was sitting in a chair with her hands hanging down, and hers were huge, too. Not big all over, but really long. I believe I found that slightly depressing, because I have pretty small hands, and I figured this didn't bode well.

( Album links behind the cut )